This post was written by Sawyer Wood, BYU Humanities Center intern and student fellow.
In fourth or fifth grade, my class made posters of our dream jobs and how we planned to get there. I’d loved writing from a young age and had always wanted to be an author, so I found an oversized poster board and opened up our thickest household sharpie, drinking in the smell as I scribbled out illustrations. I drew five or so steps on my author’s journey—the first two of me writing, and the last two of me getting published (and therefore becoming instantly famous). Between these was one drawing, a boy with his head down on a table, a trash can full of crumpled-up papers beside him. This was my childlike understanding of the struggle, the hard work of writing, sandwiched between the other drawings as if to accommodate them. The real focus was on the lightbulb-like inspirations, the exhilarating writing sessions, and the best-selling novels.
Though I can see now that my drawings also depicted my youthful naivety, I carried this writing model through childhood, high school, and even early college. Of course I understood there was something hard about writing, or at least that there should be, but I saw that difficulty as a momentary blip on the poster board, a short-lived struggle on the way to breathtaking prose. When my creative writing teacher my freshman year talked about how we’d need to go through multiple drafts to write anything good, I was bewildered. The idea of “killing our darlings” [1] (meaning rewriting, even if we liked what you have) flew in the face of everything I’d ever written. I remember trying to edit a short story at the end of the semester, my professor’s advice ringing in my ears. I toggled spell check on and off, staring at the blinking cursor, but all I could see was the few clever turns of phrase and the fact that I’d met the page count. I couldn’t convince myself to change anything. Why should I have to, I asked, if I liked it already?
Thanks to a few patient English professors and a lot more firsthand experience, I’d like to think I’ve gotten past that fourth-grade and freshman naivety. I’ve seen now what real writing processes look like, both for my fellow students and for professional authors. All of them are more complicated than my childhood poster board. Healthy writing processes are a process, as obvious as that sounds, and I’ve found that this process has a lot in common with the traditional three-act structure. Let me explain.
In a traditional narrative, there are three acts. Act I is the setup; its job is to introduce the setting and establish the characters. The first act usually ends in a dramatic reveal, something that makes the plot go from general to specific, and the hero’s goal or obstacles become clear. This introduces Act II, where the real legwork of the story happens. The knight storms the castle, or the spy infiltrates the den of thieves. Act II generally ends with another dramatic reveal, one that changes the nature of the developing plot and leads towards the climax. Then you’re into Act III, where the knight rushes to save the day, or the spy’s cover is blown, and everything comes to a head. Followed by the denouement, the climax rounds out the story and ties up any loose ends.
My freshman self’s writing was stuck in Act I. I might have had some vaguely interesting ideas, but I couldn’t pair my creativity with critical thinking, and wouldn’t go from general to specific. Questions like “How do these paragraphs flow?” or even “What’s your main idea with this story?” would have felt entirely foreign to me.
As I’ve given it more thought, I’ve realized that my real problem wasn’t a question of writing, but of perspective. I wasn’t looking to improve; I just wanted to be told my writing was great. I was what Anne Lamott, American novelist and nonfiction writer, describes in her book Bird by Bird. She says, “A lot of people come to my workshops or classes secretly hoping that I will have read their submission and absolutely flipped. I will take them aside after class and tell them that all the story needs is for them to put a little spin on the ending, maybe shorten [a] scene . . . and that then we’ll send it off to my agent or The New Yorker” [2].That was my secret hope too, because, deep down, I thought I was the best writer in the world. Both as fourth-grader and as freshman, I hoped that someone would recognize my genius and whisk me off to some elite writer’s retreat, where Ernest Hemingway and Mark Twain were secretly alive and writing the world’s next bestsellers. As Lamott indicates, that was “probably not going to happen.”
More than my aspiring fantasies though, I thought that if I was really talented (and surely, I was), flawless writing would just flow out of me, and I’d coast through life on endless waves of inspiration. That was the real reason I couldn’t bring myself to edit my story, and the reason I drew only one illustration of the writing struggle: I thought that reworking things meant I was a writing failure. But the truth—the dramatic reveal—is that “almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts” [2]. To put it another way, almost all good writing begins with a terrible first act. The good news is the show doesn’t have to stop there.
That brings us to Act II. As in a traditional narrative, this is where the real legwork happens, and where my past self gave up. Act II usually knows where it’s going, but not at all how to get there, and that’s why it’s so frustrating. Good writers keep moving anyway. They wade through their murky middles. They keep writing through the editing, through the criticism, through the “Did I really think that was clever?” They give themselves time to fall out of love with their ideas and look at them with a critical eye.
Act II is very difficult. Annie Dillard once compared rewriting to breaking down walls in a house: “You hammer against the walls . . . lightly, everywhere. After giving many years’ attention to these things, you know what to listen for. Some of the walls are bearing walls; they have to stay, or everything will fall down. Other walls can go with impunity; you can hear the difference. Unfortunately, it is often a bearing wall that has to go. It cannot be helped. There is only one solution, which appalls you, but there it is. Knock it out. Duck.” [3]. This is what it means to “kill your darlings.” It’s taking out the lines you loved, sometimes those that were your favorite when you started writing. You may feel more like the villain than the hero, but you’re moving the action forward. Act II is a creative destruction project. Getting through it means constantly admitting that your building needs some work, that you’re finding out what the final shape will be.
Act II is not skippable. It can’t be glossed over by a montage, common as they’ve become in popular media. Act II can’t solve its own problems any more than the rest of this post can write itself. I have to stay in my chair and keep working, though much of the “fun part” might be over. Because writing isn’t all fun. A professor once told me that reviewing your writing is like picking through a scrapyard [4]. According to that logic, most of what I write is junk, but it’s my job to keep digging. As I’ve written more and more, I’ve felt how true that is. Nowadays, almost everything I write has a “scraps” section at the bottom, a twisted mess of paragraphs that I’ve smashed through along the way. Often I have to keep searching, or keep polishing, for a day or two (or three, or ten) until something shines. That’s when I get a glimmer of Act III.
Act III begins with the second dramatic reveal—where you realize what you’ve been trying to write all along. It might come through a vivid description of a scene, dialogue that brings your characters into focus, or something else entirely. You’ll know it when it comes. Act III makes the whole process worth it. The pile you thought was just junk turns out to hold a piece of treasure, something that feels like “the truest sentence that you know” [5]. Compared to that treasure, your first draft and your editing—your Act I and Act II—will feel all but insignificant.
In presenting this model, I recognize that it’s oversimplified. A lot of writing goes through multiple phases in each act, and different parts of the same piece can be in different acts at the same time. One or two paragraphs can feel polished while the rest is barely coherent. Still, I’ve found this terminology helpful in considering where my writing is at, and in keeping me motivated to arrive at Act III. Every writer I know needs encouragement, needs to feel like their writing is going somewhere, and I know few better ways to encourage myself than with the same narrative structure I’m trying to craft. When I’m running out of steam or frustrated, I tell myself, “Don’t worry, I’m just getting through Act II. I can’t get to Act III without this.” I remind myself that the best things I’ve written are the things I’ve most rewritten.
That being said, I still at times catch glimpses of my fourth-grade poster. I see my younger self between the turning of pages or crouched behind a decent paragraph, whispering that my writing is great, that everyone will love it. He grumbles when I tell him we should revise again or ask for someone’s feedback. I’ll admit that sometimes I still give in to his voice; I’ve turned in many creative projects that are caught somewhere between Acts I and II. But I’m getting better at waiting for his frustration to run out, at bending down to his level and finding his tiny gaze. I hear him ask me why we should rewrite again. I hold still, sit in the stubborn eye contact, and give him the only answer I ever have: “Because I think we can do better than that.”
And that keeps me writing a little longer.
References
[1] This phrase is widely attributed to William Faulkner, though some claim it truly originated with Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch.
[2] Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Perfection Learning Corporation, 1995.
I thank Professor Cheri Earl for introducing me to this book.
[3] Dillard, Annie. The Writing Life. United Kingdom, HarperCollins Publishers, 1990.
[4] The professor referenced here is Joey Franklin.
[5] Hemingway, Ernest. A Moveable Feast. United Kingdom, Scribner, 1996.
